The future of automation is here

Evolutions in technology and the market are driving the IIoT and redefining automation. Schneider Electric delivers a new vision for the Future of Automation that unlocks new business models and a huge potential...

New industrial automation system topologies

Turn industrial automation into a Profit Engine of your business with EcoStruxure ™ Plant

Improve operational profitability in a measurable, safe and sustainable way.

Our technology and real-world IIoT expertise can help you shift from managing your business, to controlling it. With an empowered workforce and optimized industrial assets, you can maximize not only process efficiency, but also safety, reliability and even profitability of your operations, in real time.

Start converting your connected products and existing automation and control systems into the Profit Engine of your business. You will be able to stop managing your performance on a monthly or other artificial schedule – and actually control it in real time.

This is the Future of Automation.

EcoStruxure Plant

We Innovate At Every Level to enable smart control, to empower the industrial workforce and to optimize every industrial asset and asset set.

The best connected products to provide advanced process data for smarter operations

6 tips for embracing the future of automation

Future of Automation

What will the future of automation look like for me – for my operations, for my business?

It will be extremely exciting. Automation platforms will become much more agile and flexible, enabling them to align with customer architectures. The control functionality delivered on the automation systems will extend to cover new, real-time control domains, such as reliability, safety and profitability, leading to autonomous industrial assets.

Smart Control

What is the future of traditional control strategies and applications?

Traditional control strategy applications have been primarily focused on improving the efficiency of industrial processes. This level of control is a prerequisite to the extended control that will become part of the next generation of smart control. Therefore, to a large degree, traditional control strategies will become part of the future smart control domain.

Empowered Workforce

How has the role of the industrial workforce changed? Are we still relevant?

The industrial workforce has become much more sophisticated over time through interaction with industrial operations through automation systems. The workforce has had views of the industrial operations that never previously were possible and the expanded level of information provided by the automation systems has resulted in new levels of experiential learning. The workforce of the future will have even greater information content, resulting in even greater levels of learning which will make them the hub around which industrial operations will perform.

Optimized Assets

What is the potential impact on my site, my plant, my business?

Can this be Industrial enterprises and plants are comprised of a hierarchy of assets, each of which must perform optimally to maximize the business value of the operation – safely. The impact will be never-before-experienced levels of operational profitability from industrial plants which will be continuously measured and controlled for each asset and asset set in the operation through embedded real-time accounting systems.

Profitable Safety

Safety and security are the top priority. What is the role of IIoT in protecting my operations?

One of the base components of the Profit Engine concept is Profitable Safety. The Profit Engine brings plant safety to a higher level and ensures that management, with a primary focus on profits, understands that a better safety leads to greater profitability. This will help drive true safety cultures throughout industry.

Protected Investment

Are today’s control systems obsolete? How do I protect my existing investments during the transformation?

Schneider Electric has made a commitment to future-proof automation and will live up to that commitment. In fact, the Profit Engine approach will build on the excellence that has been installed in industrial plants through existing automation systems, but expand the control domain to drive greater levels of operational profitability – safely and sustainably.

Business perspectivesCement plants can save $4+ million per year

When effectively applied in a cement plant, automation and control technologies can significantly reduce energy expenses, while helping to increase production and reduce waste.

The energy consumed in a typical ethylene plant, most notably in furnaces, can represent one of the primary costs of operation. Discover how the right automation methodology can drive sustainable productivity improvements and significant OpEx savings.

For base metal operations, the cost of energy is the main OpEx item, especially in pyro processing. The right methodology and approach to automation can help them realize the tremendous untapped potential for profit.